Information technology (IT) is an important part of commercial businesses and other enterprises, such as educational institutions and the like. IT administration was once directed towards managing computer systems, applications and data in an IT infrastructure that operated in a (mostly) closed environment. Today, however, IT administration has now evolved to include new applications and computers that often interact with external networks that are not within an IT administrator's control. Examples of an enterprise's interaction with external networks include running email applications and servers, running program and computers that access the Internet, and operating computers that are configured as web servers.
Because IT administration is no longer mostly confined to a local network, there are numerous external threats that IT administrators have to deal with. For example, there are computer viruses, trojans, rootkits, spyware, spam and other malicious software that incessantly threaten IT infrastructures. As a result, IT administrators are responsible for having their IT infrastructure securely configured to thwart such ever-evolving threats, and use various technologies to do so. However, the complexity and variety of the technologies available to secure an IT infrastructure make doing so a challenging task for IT administrators.